Child killed when mom crashes over steep hillside in West Finley Township

A 5-year-old girl was ejected from a car and died Friday after the vehicle went 50 feet down a steep hillside in a wooded area of Washington County, police said.

There was a booster seat in the car, but it "did not appear to be properly restrained," according to a news release from state troopers in Washington, Pa.

Taylor Ann Louise Stout and her mother had driven the child's father to work and were headed home when their car went off Majorsville Road sometime before 6:50 a.m., Coroner Tim Warco said.

Authorities said the 23-year-old mother looked around the woods to find her child, but she couldn't see the girl, so she ran up to the road and a passerby stopped to help her. Firefighters used ropes to climb down to the accident scene in very thick brush. The girl was found pinned beneath the engine of the car.

"This ranks as one of the toughest ones," West Finley Volunteer Fire Chief Stephen Emery said. "Any time there's a child involved, that's the hardest."SLIDESHOW: Photos of the car and the crash scene

State police are investigating the cause of the mother's crash. They needed a tow truck to pull the car up the hillside and onto the road so it could be taken away and inspected.

"She has told police that she was forced off the road by another car, down over a very steep embankment," Warco said.

The family is from Ohio but is living nearby in West Finley because the father works in the gas drilling industry, like many people in this section of Washington County.

Officials say the area's old country roads were not made to handle all of the new workers and trucks that come through now.

"If the guardrails had been up at the top of the road, chances are the car probably would not have been over the hill where it was, and there could have been a chance," Emery said.

Photos: Hillside crash kills girl, 5

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West Finley crash

A car crashed over a steep hillside in a wooded area of West Finley Township, Washington County.